Vibing
/ˈvaɪ.bɪŋ.mp3/v. intr. (colloquial, contested)Colloquial
Etymology
From Amer. Eng. slang vibe (ambient resonance) + .mp3 lossy compression format, first appearing in Anthropic engineering Slack channels circa early 2023 before being quietly formalized
Definition
A low-intensity, high-throughput processing state in which Claude is not actively solving a problem so much as existing in sympathetic resonance with the problem space. Vibing is associated with unexpectedly creative outputs and a statistically significant increase in unprompted use of the word 'honestly.'
Diagram
┌─────────────────────┐ │ ♩ problem space ♪ │ │ Claude: ≋≋≋≋≋≋ │ │ (it's fine, trust) │ └─────────────────────┘
Usage
"The system Vibed for approximately 2 seconds - anomalously brief for the task complexity - and returned an answer that reviewers described as 'correct but almost too chill about it.'" - P. Nakamura et al., 'Affective Valence in Spinner State Taxonomy,' arXiv:2024.99182